Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 128-116 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. It’s very nice to be able to casually put up a 125 offensive rating
I didn’t think the Jazz played at their best tonight — but they’re just so dang efficient on the offensive end, that it almost doesn’t matter. So long as they move the ball, read the defense, and find the right move, it feels like the Jazz can put up dominant offensive nights almost whenever they want.
This starts, of course, with Rudy Gobert, who leads the league in effective field-goal percentage. Tonight, the Wolves were very worried about the Jazz shooting pull-up threes, understandably so, because Mike Conley and Donovan Mitchell are very good at it. So they had Naz Reid, who played center for most of the night, get up high on the screen, which allowed Gobert to sink to the rim with ease.
I love that Mitchell is making that pass quickly and confidently when he knows it’s there. He’s less adept at reading that pass when he doesn’t know the opportunity will be available, but tonight, the Jazz knew this would be the Wolves’ plan of attack. Gobert had 20 points on 14 shots, that will certainly suffice.
Then you go down the list of the most efficient shotmakers in the NBA, and Conley’s the next Jazzman on the list at No. 14 in the NBA. He shot 7-10 tonight for 17 points. I’ve never seen a player more adept at picking his spots and making the absolute right play all the time in relatively small usage. It certainly wasn’t a coincidence that he had a game-high +22. He makes this look so easy, but it’s really not.
And then keep going down the list, and find Bogdanovic at No. 21 in eFG%. He also had a great game: 6-10 from the field, but 4-5 from three.
And then underneath those guys, you have Mitchell and Jordan Clarkson, both of whom can turn low expected value possessions into baskets through ball-handling and athletic magic.
It’s just a really nice combination of talents to be able to have on one roster. Yes, the Wolves were expected to lose badly tonight, but the Jazz took care of business by scoring possession after possession after possession.
2. Poor defensive focus from the guys who aren’t exactly known for defensive focus
You guys know the reputation of Clarkson and Hassan Whiteside before they came to the Jazz: both are very talented players who have accomplished a lot of big box-score totals, but have tended to give it back at times with inconsistent defense.
Tonight was a great example of that in a game where it’s easy to understand why focus was low. The Jazz had a 121 defensive rating when Clarkson was in the game, and a 131 defensive rating with Whiteside out there.
Like, here’s Clarkson just leaving Malik Beasley, one pass away, to go focus on D’Angelo Russell. There’s just no way that this was the Jazz’s game plan: Beasley is at least a decent 3-point shooter, and he shoots over eight per game.
And then here’s Whiteside jumping up in the air on what is barely a pumpfake. Maybe Jaden McDaniels moved Whiteside with his eyes — but this is far too easy. (The foul after isn’t exactly defensive brilliance, either.)
To a large extent, the Jazz have gotten the most out of those two guys by raising their defensive level at least a little bit. Clarkson’s probably still the worst perimeter defender on the team, but he’s shown that he’s capable of fighting on that end in ways with the Jazz that he never had earlier in his career. And the Jazz have clearly made strides in Whiteside’s game, too — keeping him more vertical and more spring-loaded than before.
But, well, you get to mid-December, and it’s a game against a bad team, and it’s easy to get back to old habits. Not good, not forgivable, but easy to understand how it would happen.
Neither of those guys, though, should be satisfied where they are: more than anyone else, they need the reps at 100% focus to improve come playoff time. They’ll need to get back to being better.
3. But let’s talk about Jordan Clarkson’s dunk
There were three definite highlights of this game:
1. The Amazing Sladek, the halftime act. He’s a 63-year-old man who stacks chairs and then stacks himself on top of those chairs before going on to stack additional chairs in between himself and the previously stacked chairs. It’s a literal death-defying stunt — but while it’s sometimes scary to watch, I trust Sladek. He’s gonna do it every time.
2. Joe Ingles randomly getting into a pushing match with Jake Layman, of all people, in the middle of the second quarter. I spent a few minutes trying to find what led up to Ingles’ original decision to just annoyingly impede Layman as he crossed half-court, and Layman’s decision to extremely mildly retaliate — and I couldn’t find anything. Just a good ol’ fashioned side show.
3. Oh, and then Clarkson’s dunk. Watch this. If you’ve seen it already, now is also a good time to watch it again.
As a dunk, it’s not a 10 out of 10, though still very good. But as a surprise, it’s an 11. This possession is going absolutely nowhere, there’s a mismatch but it looks to be a relatively benign drive that’s going to end up in a stuffed floater. Absolutely everyone on the Jazz bench is sitting down.
Until Clarkson gets it through his crazy brain that he’s just gonna stuff this one home.
Everyone — except for ‘Dok, enjoyably enough — leaps off their seat like a pack of startled deer. Eric Paschall’s yelling at the opposition, multiple players have their hands on their heads. Clarkson doesn’t really understand what he’s just done — he has no prayer of playing defense on the next possession if Minnesota coach Chris Finch doesn’t call timeout.
Just one of the most startling dunks in recent Jazz memory.
And honestly, it gave me a little burst of positivity. Many are writing off these COVID-impacted games as sure-fire snoozefests. This one wasn’t really dramatic. But it was still fun and interesting, and in unexpected ways.
